China-Listed ETF Market Experiences Boom in Sector Plays

The Chinese markets are experiencing a surge in new exchange traded fund offerings. With new market reforms, China’s fund sponsors are quickly filling up sector plays.

According to Dai Hongkun, chief analyst at Shanghai Securities’ fund research centre, more fund companies have applied for bulk sector ETF filings after a new ruling that lifted restrictions on the number of funds a company can apply to launch, reports Glori Ye for the Financial Times.

For instance, China Universal Asset Management filed to launch four sector ETFs based on the CSI Main Consumption, CSI Medical, CSI Energy and CSI Financial and Real Estate indices back in March.

“We have seen a lot of ETFs tracking general indices in the market such as the CSI 300 Index, and now we need segmentation for those ETFs,” Hongkun said in the article. “It’s hard for fund managers to beat the market by active management, and there is also demand from investors for passive products.”

China AMC added five sector ETFs in March, and prior to the launches, China’s market only offered three sector ETFs.

China-listed ETFs have been the most pouplar new launches so far this year. For instance, according to a BlackRock research note, the ChinaAMC CSI 300 Index ETF, which launched January, has gathered $2.98 billion in assets as of April, the Guotai SSE 5-Year China Treasury Note ETF , which launched in March, had $875 million in assets and the China Southern Kaiyuan CSI 300 Index ETF, which launched in April, brought in $603 million in assets.